Harry writes in his memoir Spare: “He looked at me in a funny way, a way he’d never looked at me before. With…fear? What is it, Pa? He sat down on the edge of the bed. He put a hand on my knee. Darling boy, Mummy’s been in a car crash. I remember thinking: Crash…OK. But she’s all right? Yes? I vividly remember that thought flashing through my mind. And I remember waiting patiently for Pa to confirm that indeed Mummy was all right. And I remember him not doing that. There was then a shift internally.”

“ I began silently pleading with Pa, or God, or both: No, no, no. Pa looked down into the folds of the old quilts and blankets and sheets. There were complications. Mummy was quite badly injured and taken to hospital, darling boy. He always called me “darling boy,” but he was saying it quite a lot now. His voice was soft. He was in shock, it seemed. Oh. Hospital? Yes. With a head injury,” he notes.

“I thought again: Injured…but she’s OK. She’s been taken to hospital, they’ll fix her head, and we’ll go and see her. Today. Tonight at the latest. They tried, darling boy. I’m afraid she didn’t make it,” Harry recalls.